


Aftermath

by Alleycatsandwolves



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Cancer, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, POV John Watson, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson - Freeform, Sicfic, first attempt at fic writting, sorry if it sucks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-17
Updated: 2013-07-19
Packaged: 2017-12-20 11:31:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/886767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alleycatsandwolves/pseuds/Alleycatsandwolves
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>in which A large tumor is found in Sherlock's brain. And john and Sherlock have to make a terrible decision. have It surgically removed and lose his personality and his memories or go through chemo and lose half his life. John is torn and suffering.<br/>#angst</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Sherlock Holmes you were known for the impression you left. He trailed it behind him like blackened diamonds. You were sharp and mean. Sometimes people even used words like heartless or sociopathic. And of course when I met you I thought things like brilliant, beautiful, and of absolutely nuts. And maybe even a bit of a twat. Your first impressions always stuck though, and you never let anyone get to know you past those first impressions. So people rarely saw past that initial idea of you. 

But for some reason you saw something in me, you asked me to move in with you. You dragged me around London with your great coat swishing about and me traveling limply behind you, but you fixed that. You healed me in a night in a way months of therapy couldn’t accomplish. You allowed me into your life and I got to see past the initial impression of the world’s only consulting detective. I got to stay in your home and bask in your presence; and even if you were a bit of a twat. I got to see the Sherlock Holmes that no one else did.  
The one that suffered silently. The one that mumbled memories in his sleep. I saw the Sherlock whose laugh filled a room even if it was just a quiet chuckle. I saw how your eyes lit up with that laugh, the same way they did for a “good murder”. I also saw the Sherlock that hung his head low, letting his silky black curls hide his eyes when he had to actually witness someone die, and when your own pain was a little too much. You were still a big ball of constant energy that could bounce off the walls. You still spouted brilliant deductions from just a glance, you were still arrogant and mean, you still called everyone and idiot, you still strived for absolute perfection. And you were still endlessly flawed but somehow that only made you better. 

I got to see the real Sherlock Holmes. I got to fall in love with the real Sherlock Holmes love with. And he fell in love with me too. You know I hate you for that right, for making me fall in love. It made life that much harder you know, and even in all that even now I wouldn’t change it. Because being in love with you was the most earthshaking experience of my life.  
Is, is the most earthshaking experience.  
And now I’m sitting here rolling around in the aftermath of an earthquake. Or would this be the aftershock. The extra surprise you get after the initial moving of the ground. The one you didn’t see coming that knocks you flat on your ass, then leaves you to wallow in the aftermath…

But I’m getting off track aren’t I. It’s easy to do that right now. It’s easy to ramble when you can’t interrupt me a thousand times. You know you never let me get a word in edgewise. But now you’re sleeping. You’re finally getting some rest, of course this would be what it takes for you to get some rest. But right now you can’t interrupt me so it seemed like the best time to talk to you.

 

You know they’re asking for permission to kill you Sherlock, everything that makes you so amazing they’re asking for permission to kill you, and they can’t have it. They dress it up like options, they tell me it’s an option between surgery and chemo. They can either open your beautiful skull and cut out all the special beautiful things about you, or they can load you up with radiation and drugs, your life would be short and painful, but you’ll keep your personality, your essence…and your memories of me. You would die the impossible, insufferable, irrefutable Sherlock Holmes. But they’re asking for permission to kill you and they can’t have it. I won’t let them. They just can’t.  
Sherlock you don’t understand. When you hear the news the answer is easy. You don’t understand why I can’t let you die, I can’t live my life knowing there’s only five years of you left in it.  
I can’t live my life knowing Fuzzy edges of a big tumor are going to take away my Sherlock. Do you know how infuriating that is?  
A little mas of intrusive cells are going to make me lose my Sherlock. Because you are mine. You were supposed to be mine forever. But now these doctors, these devils in disguise (because these doctors are the devil Sherlock) are telling me I can’t keep you. And they’re putting a time limit on us. They’re asking me which hell I prefer.  
I think I started screaming at them. I can only speculate though from the faces they made and the way they backed away from me. I couldn’t really hear myself. It’s like they stuffed my ears with wet cotton.  
This was supposed to be exhaustion. You hadn’t slept in a week, why couldn’t be it be exhaustion, when you dropped in Lestrade’s office too weak to move I was supposed to drag you to the hospital, let the doctors treat you. Prescribe you some rest, you’d wake up I’d scold you, make you sleep, you’d comply for about two nights before you started the same cycle over again because that was our way and it worked for us.  
And by the way I’m not only mad at the doctors Sherlock, I mean I hate the doctors, but I’m mad at you too, I’m furious with you. I’m your doctor and you never told me a damn thing. Not about the headaches or the nausea. The weakness or the bits of memory loss. It was all just transport to you. Something to deleted or filed away under unimportant or boring. So I didn’t get to find out until today, sitting in a crappy hospital chair, that you were losing bits of your childhood, and some days when you were laying on the couch unmoving it was because you felt too weak to stand. I didn’t get to know because it didn’t matter to you it was all just transport. And you could still deduce, you could still bounce off the walls the way you always do so what was the difference right. This was the difference you bastard. And I hate myself too, for not noticing. For getting so getting so wrapped up in your fucking world that I couldn’t see the obvious. Or maybe I saw and I just couldn’t observe.  
Sherlock sitting here, in this shit plastic chair, looking at you hooked up to tubes and needles in your arms I hate every damn thing on this fucking planet. Doctors and patients, I hate everyone here. The doctor tending to you is kind and cheery, and I hate her too, I hate her for trying to comfort me like she understood. I hate it all Sherlock. Because there’s no way wriggle out of this, there’s no secret escape trick you can pull at the last minute to make this all better. And I hate that with all my heart.


	2. Chapter 2

It takes three hours of staring at your face, talking and silent crying to your sleeping form before exhaustion finally sets in and forces me eyelids closed. Warped visions with hazy edges dance behind my eyes.

Gun shots. Blood, so much blood. Good men dying. Bad men dying. Civilians and Innocent bystanders dying, and there is so much blood everywhere. It smells like rusted metal. No one ever told me in med school about these things, about the scent of seared flesh and rusted metal, or the way sun bakes your skin why is everyone. The smell of seared flesh is a little too close to my nose. And why is my left shoulder on fire. The heat feels too harsh against my back and the dirt feels uncomfortable against my face….  
Helicopter rides and shattered bones. Three surgeries to reconstruct. Psycho schematic limp hobbling through the busy London streets. The closest thing to action in England I can get my hands on. And it’s not enough. Violent death and guns shots I shouldn’t miss violent death and gunshots. Maybe I’m sick.  
Useless chats in the park with old friends I meant to forget. Dragged to labs to meet….tall thin pale dark haired geniuses. Messy apartments, dragged to crime scenes, picked up in black cars by shady men, calling murders, dragged to dinner, chasing taxis across London rooftops. I think I’m breathing. For the first time in months. I’m alive again.  
Feeling peaceful. In chaos and madness finding love and peace. Finding arguments and laughter. Chasing criminals through the streets. And a stolen kiss when the tension was just too much and something had to be done, when I’d had enough of watching the great coat and black curls swish about like some ungodly force of nature, the kind I found myself wanting to be swept up in. The feeling of lacing rough and calloused fingers in soft black curls and pressing lips to lips. Hot and needy or soft and slow. The press of bodies, so different but fit so perfectly fit together. Love and sex and magic, crime scenes and murder. Life is good.  
Collapsing in Lestrade’s office. Silly git what else is new? You’ve got to start sleeping love. I’d say it tenderly but sharp and commanding. I had that voice mastered, because I see how it makes you melt, even if you tried not to show it. Hospital visit just to be safe.  
A bubbly doctor asks for symptoms you said words like slight memory loss, sporadic muscle weakness for hours at a time. I thought about slapping you, why wouldn’t you tell me. Bubbly starts recommending MRI’S and CT scans.  
Scans show enormous tumors with frayed ends working its way into your beautiful mind. I vaguely hear words like malignant, and carcinogenic.  
“Now we can either surgically remove the mass but the tumors in his frontal lobe. It’s very large and fraying so its removal will also affect his memory and personality but it would double his life expectancy”  
“Meaning, he won’t be himself or…remember me”  
“Yes” Bubbly nodded trying to tone down the cheer for my benefit  
“And the other option”  
“Chemo therapy, his mental facilities won’t be impaired but his life expectancy is cut in half”  
I’m chocking on air, your long fingers are gripping mine and I can’t find it in me to be mad at you, so I spend all my time hating bubbly. I’m choking on air and drowning in light, the air is thick and clogging up my lungs, I can’t breathe, they’re trying to take my Sherlock away. The lights in this awful place are too bright and it smells like latex and medicine. Its freezing in here and the lights are too bright. They’re blinding me and I can’t see. I’m dizzy and my ears are flooded with water. You’re tugging at my shirt sleeve trying to pull me back to you. I can tell. I can hear your voice and I’m trying to work my way back to you. You’re saying my name again and again, I’ll make my way back to you Sherlock, you need me so I’ll make my way back to you. Even if when you’re sleeping I’ll openly hate everything even if I want to die I’ll make my way back to you.  
I don’t like to wake up to tears. I like it even less when you’re staring at me, appraising my tears

“You look terrible” you said frowning  
“Go back to sleep Sherlock, you need your sleep” I said running my fingers through my hair  
“I don’t want to sleep, the more you think I’m sleeping the more time you spend watching me…and crying”  
“You need your sleep” was all the response I’d give him  
“My sleeping doesn’t seem to do you any good” he said now propping up on an elbow.  
“Do you really think this is better?” I snapped tiredly  
“No, but you’re not crying, so I’ll take that as a step up” he said plainly  
“You’re impossible” I mumbled  
“I aim to be”  
I did the closet thing I could manage to a smile, and it was painful. Heartbreakingly painful. It was the middle of the night and the only light in the room was a dim lamp. Sherlock’s face was closer to it and more illuminated, I could see clearly the outline his blade sharp cheekbones and jawline, his pale skin and black curls and his eyes, his technicolor eyes, and all I could do was imagine his eyes turned a murky gray, and skin sickly yellow, his soft black curls in clumps on the floor and cheeks sunken in thinner than a corpse. That’s no way to live. How could I do that to him? I didn’t want to cry again so I analyzed the porcelain floor tiles intensely.  
I could feel his eyes on me. Taking in every facet of my being.  
“I know what chemo will do to me, don’t care it’s just trans-“  
“Sherlock Holmes if you say transport I will tear someone’s heart out with my bare hands”  
“Someone’s…but not mine. John I know you’re mad at me, of course I know you can be mad at me I can take it”  
“I’m sure you can, Sherlock, an I’m not only mad at you but yes I am, I’m furious with you Sherlock, you think you’re body’s just transport but it’s important to me, though apparently that doesn’t matter”  
“John if you genuinely believe that’s true you really are an idiot”  
“Well what should I be thinking Sherlock, I’m your doctor you damn well know I’d need to…want to know about any problems you’re having, but you told me nothing…” I was shaking apart. I could feel it, my voice my body I was falling apart  
“How could you do that to me” I didn’t realize I was on my feet and the crying was inevitable now. I was shaking apart and crying. Lovely.  
Sherlock was on his feet in an instant holding me. I felt bad, I should be comforting him. That or hating him but I could bring myself to do neither properly so instead I just let him hold me. I buried my face into his chest and whimpered. He let his chin rest atop my head.  
“I can’t do this Sherlock, I can’t live my life knowing all you have left are five, painful awful years at beast, Sherlock I can’t do that” my voice broke every time I said his name. Speaking hurt like the words burned my throat.  
“My life, wouldn’t be worth living if I’m not me john. I can’t live any other way, even if it shortens my life expectancy, even if it cuts my years in half, double the years of hell is not a better option john. Twice as long of not knowing who I am, of losing everything that makes me worth anything. John I can’t do that, I’d rather spend my years loving you, and being me wouldn’t you prefer that?”  
I was silent for a pause, it was hard logic to argue but I would try, I had too “Sherlock this decision is not that easy stop treating it like it is. I mean those years would be short painful years. Consumed by chemo, an-and…..”  
I was whimpering into his chest. I was choking on air again so I held my breath. We stood there like that. In between a cheap plastic chair and a hospital bed holding each other, sometimes we’d argue a bit sometimes I’d cry sometimes I’d just hold my breath until I couldn’t take it anymore. Sherlock kept that same aggravating calm you’d expect of him. We stood there for god knows how long and I was almost content, because in this moment time seemed to have no meaning everything just stopped around us. I mean of course it as on my mind but in this moment there were no immediate decisions to be made, no dismal future to look to, just me and Sherlock holding each other, tethering each other to this world. Right here I was almost content  
“Is everything okay in here?” I hate that bubbly bitch  
She flipped on the lights and it was too bright again, light flooded the room. I preferred the dark you don’t have to face reality in the dark.  
The girls smile was insufferable and I secretly prayed my bedside manner wasn’t upsettingly cheery.  
“Everything’s fine” Sherlock snapped at the girl not letting go of me, I think it was more for my benefit then his. Wasn’t it always? Sherlock didn’t need such niceties from me. When it came to comfort and love I was the needy one. Sherlock didn’t need anyone.  
“Yes were fine” I said breaking the embrace Sherlock looked down at me slightly perplexed but shrugged it off. In the light I got another look at him. His long lean limbs were draped in a short cheap thin hospital gown, his calves were exposed. His body was too long for the dress. He looked wrong.  
“Mr. Holmes really should get his rest, we’ll be needing your final decision by tomorrow”  
“Thank you for the reminder” I growled through gritted teeth. “You can go now bubbly”  
“What?”  
“Go” I snapped while ushering Sherlock back into his bed  
“You don’t like her happiness” Sherlock pondered  
“Brilliant deduction”  
“Why? I would assume as a doctor you appreciate good bedside manner”  
“No I don’t like her overt cheeriness in a terrible situation, you don’t really seem to like her either though?”  
Sherlock shrugged as john tucked him into the blankets “no I don’t enjoy her disposition, but honestly she makes you unhappy I don’t like that.”  
“You don’t have to hate people for me Sherlock but I appreciate the sentiment” the world’s only consulting detective rolled his eyes before cuddling into the covers and fall asleep. I watched him for a moment before crawling in next to him. He expected it of course and opened his arms for me. Giving me what I need. How could I convince myself to give him up. How could I convince myself to let him this suffer.


	3. Chapter 3

They were coming. Clad in white like they were some sort of team of angels. devils disguised as angels how disgusting. and you're staring at me, just watching me you've been doing it for hours but I won't look at you. I can't look at you. So I stared straight forward. When your asleep its easy, I could watch you all day when you slept. I could cry for my loss in peace, but now you're wide awake and staring at me, waiting for me to talk first, you know I will, I know I will.

"how are you feeling?" I ask lamely. but I didn't want to argue, I didn't have the energy too. I didn't sleep well, even by your side I was restless. you didn't look right Sherlock. Not in that stupid gown. Soon you'd be wearing one all the time, you'd have concave cheeks and hair falling out in clumps. /don't cry, don't cry, don't cry again/

"honestly john?" 

"Yup."

"I'm not sure how to comfort people john, its not really my area."

"don't worry I'm f-"

"Don't lie to me John, your not fine, don't say it"

"okay I'm not fine, I'm going to not only watch you die, but watch you make the choice to die /sooner/" I held up my hand to cut you off before you could interrupt me "I know you refuse to lose yourself, you refuse to lose who you are I understand I really do Sherlock you're an amazing man, who would want to...give that up."

I regretted the choice of words, my voice braking twice on the sentence. "but I don't have to be okay with it, I don't have to be fine and I refuse to be okay. I refuse to be fine with you...dying, dying /slowly/ /painfully/ while I...watch unable to do anything. so just /shut up/" it took all my strength not to choke on the words. The air was thick again and it hurt to breath. the air is actually thick. I don't understand how pain can defy physics.

Sherlock was silent for a moment " I- you can't make me feel bad." you were breathing heavily now. I still wasn't looking at you. I still couldn't. but I could hear you  
"you won't make me feel bad....You're right I don't want to lose myself but i might consider it if it would make you feel better, if you'd be in less pain...but john you can't make me feel bad because i don't want to lose you"

"wha-"

"my /memory/ of you john! I won't lose /memory/of you john. I refuse to /allow myself to forget you!/ i can't go into surgery knowing I'll wake up never knowing who you are. I won't let anyone make me forget you. I don't /care/ if I die a little younger because living my life with out knowing you after... after loving you is /not/ an option. I will /never/ be willing to do that, even if it means I have to see you /cry/, if I have to listen to you tell me how much you /hate/ everything and everyone when you think I'm sleeping. And I won't feel bad about it john, you can't make me. I'm sorry, i'm...so sorry but you won't make me feel bad about this john"

You were crying. Your voice was steady, but when i finally looked a you your eyes welled with tears. That streaked down your face silently. The water in your eyes softened the steely ice blue and made them look innocent. The water in your eyes reflected the fear, and when the welled tears broke and spilled down your cheeks my heart nearly stopped. They reflected the pain.

I crawled into your bed, I stood up without a word and crawled into your bed and just held you. You didn't shake or sob, you just cried and I didn't speak a word I just held you. And we stayed that way for I don't know how long but when your tears stopped your lips found mine. it had been days since we kissed. And when you first pressed your lips to mine my heart sent a spike of adrenaline down my spine and made the hairs on my neck raise. And when you pulled away it left a phantom tingle on my lips so I laced my fingers in your hair and pulled your mouth back to mine. And we kissed, your tongue moved in my mouth brushing against my tongue in a familiar way that made my heart stop then kick into high gear. We sat in the thin hospital bed kissing and holding each other for what felt like centuries and seconds. Then the door opened and the white clad devils walked in and forcing us to break apart.

"I'm very sorry gentleman but we do need your decision" /god I hate that bubbly bitch/


	4. Chapter 4

You died on a Thursday, at 3:27 am.  
You had been fighting for seven years. Of course you would outlast the statistics. I think that's half the reason you lived those extra years. I know the other half was for me I know. you made that clear, for seven years you made that clear. Sherlock I'm standing at your tomb stone for the second time in my life. I'm crying at you tombstone for the /second/ time in my life do you know how wrong that is Sherlock. this is the second time. Sherlock we knew it was coming I know, but I wasn't ready. I can't get that hospital room out of my head Sherlock. You'd been sick, so sick. You'd been fighting for so long. Usually lestrade would bring cases to you when you were to ill to go on foot but it got to the point you were to sick to even bother. Your cheeks were concave, and it was impossible to ignore your thick black curls in clumps on the floor, you were pale and you were in pain. You'd been fighting for seven years and all my nightmares, that haunted me, nightmares that ghosted themselves into my eyes and tainted my smiles. And they became real. It happened slowly, seven years you fought and you were finally worn out. you finally couldn't take anymore whether you could admit it or not. so we went to the hospital for treatment and test. we stayed there all night and I crawled into that tiny cheap bed under those thin papery sheets, and I held you. I wrapped my arms around your frail body and I held us together. I held us together all night and you didn't sleep for a moment. You were alert and aware until the end. you stared at me all night without a word, you just watched me, looking out for me, trying to protect me even then. I knew it was coming but I wasn't ready when your eyes started to close, when I could see you fading. My stomach was in my feet and my heart, my heart was choking me Sherlock. I tried to scream, I think I screamed because the nurses came, but I can only speculate my ears were stuffed with wet cotton again. At least it wasn't bubbly.

I should probably feel like clinging to you was pathetic, but I can't bring myself to. you clung to me too, in your last breaths you clutched my shirt put they dragged me away from you, you were already gone but still it hurt. I just wasn't /ready/ and I never would be but that didn't really matter, because you were gone. you whispered to me before you faded away, before I lost you said "I love you john" it was simple and sentimental and I needed it more than anything else in the world, because you didn't say it often, only when I really needed it and you always knew when I really needed it. I whispered to you too I wanted to say so many things, I wanted to say  
"I'll miss you" "I need you" "you can't do this" I wanted to shout into your ear while you faded away "don't go, you're not allowed" but all I said was "goodbye love" I nearly choked on that goodbye, it didn't want to come out of my throat, but I had to you had to know it was okay to go, you had to, you were suffering and I was selfish. I'd be so selfish to beg you to stay because, honestly if I asked you probably would've, you would've fought the inevitable and you may have even beat it, but I can't ask you to do that, ask you to suffer just a little longer just to sate my need for you. So I whispered goodbye, so you could know it as okay to go.

it wasn't, not in the slightest. it wasn't okay Sherlock but you had to. and the minute you started to fade I knew it. I think that's why I clung to you. I knew you had to and my body fought it.

You had to, but I wasn't ready, not for the pain. That goodbye was like the severing of a cord connected to my soul, my heart, my mind and the cord was axed when you faded away. And it hurts Sherlock, breathing hurts like inhaling glass. And moving is lie walking through the ocean, like everything is working against my body as I tried to move.

And now I'm standing here and your tombstone /again/ but there's no smoke and mirrors you won't be back a few years later with an apology and a wild mystery to chase.

I won't let Ms. Hudson get rid of your things its just n right. 221b is your home and it would be a crime to move your things from your home. lestrade calls me regularly but I can't pick u the phone. I still work, I still eat I still try, because I know you'd be disappointed if I didn't. i keep making the effort to put some scarps of my life back together but you were so deeply rooted in every aspect of my life when you...let everything shook apart. like an earthquake.

Sherlock when you were ripped out of my life everything shook to pieces. like the earth splitting in half trying to swallow me whole. I survived Sherlock but the earth is still spilt and everything is still fallen around me, everything shook apart, everything's broken Sherlock, and now I'm here trying to live in the aftermath.


End file.
